Woodspin is set to begin operating what it calls a “zero-emission factory producing sustainable textile fiber from certified wood at scale.” Its objective is to produce an annual yield of a thousand tons of Spinnova textile fiber, and to scale up to a million with the aid of a second factory by 2033.
Headquartered in Jyväskylä, Finland, the company is a joint venture between Spinnova, the Finnish company that invented the eponymous fiber, and Suzano, the Brazilian producer of pulp and paper from eucalyptus trees.
According to Woodspin, the only by-product of Spinnova manufacture is heat, which is in part “recycled into the local district heating system” for an estimated savings of 2.4kg CO2e per kilogram of fiber produced. The factory, therefore, “saves more emissions than it creates” and may operate without an environmental permit.
The raw material – eucalyptus pulp – comes from trees “sustainably grown” on “previously degraded” land by a company with a “strict zero deforestation policy.”
Spinnova’s genesis dates to 2009, when Juha Salmela – already researching nano cellulose at Finland’s Technical Research Centre (VTT) – heard a specialist in spiders liken nano cellulose to spiderweb protein. What if wood fiber could be spun like spider silk? The question led to a decade’s research and a patent application.
Spinnova fiber has since been used by such brands as Adidas, Arket (H&M), Marimekko and Jack&Jones, but it is used in more than textiles. The fiber figures also in the Pusu Loska Spinnova ski, which won an ISPO Award in 2022.
Spinnova has been listed on the Nasdaq Helsinki First North Growth Market since 2021. In October 2022, it received a grant of a maximum of €1.6 million from the European Union’s NextGenerationEU financing and Finland’s Bio & Circular Finland sustainable growth program for its fiber research.
